News Releases

News Releases

It is with great sadness that the Executive Office and staff of the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST) learned of the passing of Louis Berlinguet this past Sunday at the age of 91.

The Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST) has published a study that presents a picture of the profession of emergency medical technician-paramedic (EMT‑P), its risks and its difficulties. To do this, researchers observed 101 EMT-Ps, including 23 women, in the Montreal and Quebec City areas during 175 shifts and paid particular attention to individual factors such as sex, seniority and obesity.

From October 17 to 19, the IRSST will be hosting a meeting of the CSA Z259 technical committee on fall protection. The committee takes a leadership role in fall protection to promote the occupational health and safety of people working at heights. Some forty delegates from various countries develop, draft and maintain product standards, as well as testing standards for these products for the purpose of their certification or registration.

The Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST) and the Palais des congrès de Montréal have launched a call for applications from potential recipients of the first-ever IRSST/Ambassadors’ Club Joint Award. Valued at $10,000, the award will go to an applicant who, through his or her active involvement in a scientific committee or as the organizer of a national or major international conference, has demonstrated his or her intention to promote Montreal as the ideal location for holding a scientific event on occupational health and safety (OHS).

A two-part longitudinal study gave researchers a better understanding of the process of implementing interventions that foster good mental health in the workplace. Four organizations involved in this type of process participated. The study was conducted with managers of the participating organizations by means of two questionnaire-based measures administered three months apart and one-on-one interviews. The managers also took part in an information session where they were presented with 25 psychosocial constraint (PC) management tools.

The Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST) and the Institut de la statistique du Québec have published a report on youth who work during the school year. The results presented in these two publications (the report and an additional pamphlet) are based on analyses of data from the QLSCD gathered in 2013 when the youth were about 15 years old and most were in grade 9.

The Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST) is proud to announce that one of its scholarship recipients has been honoured with an Étudiants-chercheurs étoiles Award from the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ). The awardee is Alexandra Lecours, a doctoral student in biomedical sciences at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.

In a research activity aimed at broadening knowledge, the researchers focused on unforeseen events experienced during the apprenticeships of nine students aged 15 to 17 enrolled in training for a semiskilled trade. These events, which disrupted the trainees’ normal workflow, sometimes resulted in an incident, or risked causing an accident. The researchers wanted to document the strategies used by these nine apprentices when unforeseen events arise. Using video sequences filmed at the beginning and end of the students’ apprenticeships, the researchers were able to determine and classify unforeseen events, their causes, and the strategies used to overcome them. In total, 554 unforeseen events were observed, of which 19% involved occupational health and safety (SST) risks. More than half of the events with the potential to cause an accident were associated with the specific work contexts of three of the nine trainees: a woodworker, a stock handler in a household appliance/electronics store, and a butcher’s helper. All had tasks involving handling heavy loads. To deal with unforeseen events, the apprentices mainly used individual strategies, in that they tried to solve problems themselves, without asking for help from more experienced coworkers.

A study has just been published on the safety of workers operating or performing maintenance on plastic injection moulding machines that interact with peripherals such as robots, conveyors and granulators. By analysing accident reports, referring to the standards and carrying out a series of on-site observations, the researchers were able to determine the relevant risks and consider ways of reducing or eliminating them. Collecting this information helped the researchers arrive at a more concrete assessment of the reality faced by workers in the plastics processing industry who are exposed to hazardous situations that can sometimes be fatal.